How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain

by Lisa Feldman Barrett

Emotions are social reality. We construct instances of emotion in exactly the same manner as colors, falling trees, and money: using a conceptual system that is realized within the brain’s wiring. We transform sensory inputs from the body and the world, which are perceiver-independent, into an instance of (say) happiness in the context of a concept, “Happiness,” found in many human minds. The concept imposes new functions on these sensations, creating reality where there was none before: an experience or perception of emotion. Instead of asking, “Are emotions real?” the better question is, “How do emotions become real?”